Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, said she would vote to censure Rep. Maxine Waters over her comments calling on protesters to get “confrontational” at a demonstration a few miles away from where Derek Chauvin’s trial was being held.
Waters, a Democrat from California, made the statement in Brooklyn, Minn., where protesters gathered Saturday following a police shooting that killed another Black man, 20-year-old Daunte Wright.
“We’ve got to stay on the street and we’ve got to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational, we’ve got to make sure that they know we mean business,” Waters said.
Herrera Beutler said on social media Tuesday that she’ll vote in favor of a resolution condemning Waters’ “incendiary remarks.”
“All elected officials should know better than to appear before an already-charged crowd and throw gasoline on the fire,” Herrera Beutler said.
The congresswoman had also alluded more vaguely to Waters’ comments on Monday, condemning them without pointing to Waters by name.
“While America should continue striving to end racial injustice, calls from federal representatives to increase confrontation with police, eliminate law enforcement, and end incarceration are dangerous and destructive,” Herrera Beutler said. “Our country needs its elected officials to provide leadership right now — but stoking violence and demanding to strip communities of police protection is the opposite.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said that Waters’ comments were delivered in the full context of the civil rights movement and that she does not believe they merit an apology. A resolution calling for her censure will likely be tabled by the Democratic majority.
